


Betray the Body, Save the Heart

by VerdantMoth



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Betrayal, Break Up, Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, Established Relationship, Feral Merlin, M/M, Magic Slavery, They get back together, kind of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-05
Updated: 2018-01-05
Packaged: 2019-08-23 05:09:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 5,961
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16612523
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VerdantMoth/pseuds/VerdantMoth
Summary: It was my shame to keep buried!”There is blood on Merlin’s hands. There has been for a long time; that is what happens when one rends hearts from chest. It drips between knuckles as he rip collarbones in half and cleaves skulls apart.





	1. Chapter 1

“It was my shame to keep buried!” He is pounding his chest with spit flying. There are sparks in the air, strange periwinkle and moss colored electricity.

He lurches toward Arthur, who deftly steps aside, tracking the rivulets of tears slicing over bluff-edge cheekbones.

There is blood on Merlin’s hands. There has been for a long time; that is what happens when one rends hearts from chest. It drips between knuckles as he rips collarbones in half and cleaves skulls apart.

He sinks to his knees, and the ground around him ripples, curls up like clay and collapses like dust, leaving strange lumps of grass marring the field like a pockmarked face.

Arthur doesn’t step closer. Doesn’t attempt to comfort the bone-pale man. “We’ve all killed Merlin. It’s war.”

Merlin shakes his head. “Not like this. Not like me.” He lifts a spindly hand, still glistening with flesh and muscle, pairs the other next to it, and Arthur refuses to focus on the chucks of identifiable face.

Merlin keeps his head bowed, and it could be raining for the sweat pouring from his brow. “They’ll hang me for this. Now that we’ve lost. They’ll make a spectacle of it.”

Arthur thinks he is done, until blue eyes, empty as a summer sky, find his own. “I never should have trusted you with my true name. You’ve murdered me, Arthur Pendragon. With every braggart’s tale you told of the enemies you had me slay.” Merlin curls in, torso a perfect reflection of a crescent moon. “You made me your dragon, and I was happy to dig my claws into armies. But I never wanted to be known for it. Glory was always your goal.”

Arthur holds back his flinch, but he can’t stop the strange hissing from his breast. He wants to tell Merlin how wrong he is. That he, Arthur Pendragon, was lighter without heroes’ tales attached to his name; but while he can lie to himself, he never has been able to lie to the broken man before him.

“We have not yet lost, Merlin. Camelot still flies her flags. Our armies still march.”

Sometimes Merlin wonders if Arthur ever chokes on the acid of his dishonesty, the way the dying choke on their own blood. He slumps forward, burying his face in the carnage of his latest victim. He knows he should be bothered by the smell of it, the slick warmth of it.

When had he become numb to the sensation of brutal death? He thinks it was when Arthur first began this war.

So many are dead. He should remember their names and faces. He doesn’t. He can’t. The weight of so much wasted life would drown him just the same as a storm-swollen current. He thinks they were his friends, some of them. He thinks that their laughs were like summer breezes if he tries hard enough. If he remembers right, he wept for days over cold, armor-clad corpses.

He knows for certain that Arthur grieved alone. Locked himself away but couldn’t stop the echoes of broken glass and shattered wood from reverberating through the castle.

North of Camelot there is a hill dotted with row after row of enchanted stone. Somewhere, a queen lies beneath a willow tree. Merlin doesn’t think about her. He knows that Arthur’s sword struck the first soldier. He also knows that the Queen’s chalice really started this war. Except, that isn’t true either.

Merlin started this war so many years ago, with his own poisoned offering.

Hands grip him tight, yank him from the red mud. Cool iron clicks around his wrist, his neck, and he knows he should feel cold from the magic yanked from him.

He doesn’t remember what warm felt like.

Hands cup his face, surprisingly gentle and broad. It wakes something in his foggy mind and he manages to lift his head to peer into blue eyes. Blue like a fading summer day. Blue that should be dark as a cavern lake, but isn’t.

“I’m sorry, Merlin.” Truly, Arthur has never looked more regretful.

Warmth blossoms in Merlin. Hate and bitterness swirl, bubble, and he thinks he might be sick with it. Arthur allows him to hunch over, and it’s only the days of emptiness that keep Merlin from adding to the mess around him.

“I have a plan. Always have.” Arthur strokes his fingers through Merlin’s matted hair. “From the first blow, Merlin. You must trust me.”

Merlin, curled and shivering, covered in friends and foe and earth and sweat, manages to find his king’s eyes once more. “Never again, Arthur Pendragon. I renounce you, as my king and my friend.”

Arthur steps back, fist tight. He clenches his jaw and only Merlin can see the hurt twinging in his left eye, and it feeds the rot growing in Merlin’s soul. He spits at Arthur’s feet. “I renounce you as my love.”


	2. Chapter 2

Day and night cycle aimlessly. The weather might shift between hot and cold, dry and damp. Merlin is unsure. He has lost weight. His hair, unclean since the battle they lost, curls beneath his ears, scrapes his neck, grows in oily curls along his jaw.

Firm fingers force bread and cheese in his mouth, warm and soft. Merlin knows he should be worried about the gentle caresses that try to clean him, that drags cloth over his body.

He likes the slender fingers better. They’re cruel, raking down his arms and sloshing filthy water in his face. The slender fingers are cold, bringing ice with them always, smashing maggots into his teeth. The slender fingers always leave impressions in his jaw, on his hips, across his collarbone.

Somehow, he feels dirtier under that weight than he ever did buried in mud and corpse. Sometimes the fingers argue with each other. A clashing of beliefs. His name in a mouth marked by a single crooked tooth, under the tongue caged behind perfect teeth.

He doesn’t know which sound he prefers. He wonders which of them like the taste of it more.

Light filters into the room he is in, bouncing off stone into eyes accustomed to the dark. Water runs down his cheeks and it burns, though he is unsure why.

Chainmail blocks his view, shielding him. “Merlin.”

The rot simmers in him.

“Bathe, Merlin. Your magic is needed.”

He tries to lift his head, to summon spit in the desert caught behind his teeth. He cannot move though. His body is just another fixture in this room. A gloved hand grabs his shoulders and yanks him upright.

Everything creaks, and when his knees buckle the sound reverberates, shaking the former king to his core. He tries to catch the wizard, but he cannot brace himself against the sharp bones. Instead they land in a heap in Merlin’s waste. The mighty have fallen, he thinks, as strong arms hold him.

Warm breath tickles his ears. “Would you forgive me, if I asked?”

Merlin thinks. About red curls, blond hair, about nights in the tavern, and first loves behind veils. He thinks of dark skin, and soft curls, and childhood friends. He thinks of all the faces he will never see again, even if he finds away past these irons, past these walls. He thinks of a castle, once gleaming in the sun, now crumbled beneath magic and hooves, and he thinks of entire villages burned for nothing more than the sin of having met him.

When he screams, it is almost silent.

Having his spirit ripped from his body by memories does not stop the proceedings. Merlin is dragged to a stream where he is bathed and clothed in soft furs. His hair is cut, so that it hangs at his ears, but doesn’t curl along his neck. His beard is trimmed. Skilled hands drive bone and pigment along his arms, sleeves of stolen runes his new adornments. Something is waking in him though.

Something is festering among the rot. Someone has lied to the Witch Queen. Someone has told her that metal shackles and a few carved marks are enough for her to leash his magic. But the druids did not draw the images properly. They do not channel Merlin’s magic, nor do they stall it.

He doesn’t know yet what they do to it, but he can feel it humming inside of him, and to have it awaken in his chest is like the return of a lover’s touch from the dead. Unnatural, horrifying, and compelling. Entirely worth whatever consequences.

The Traitor King stands beside the Witch Queen. Merlin can see now, how sharp his edges are, how full his beard. He can see the ever present nails curled beneath his chin, guiding his every move. Merlin can sense the black whorls hiding beneath blond curls on his chest, and he wonders how they have beguiled the Queen. The ink calls to him, begs him to solve the riddle.

Magic whispers in his ears, bids him open his eyes. Merlin tires as he tries. His eyes are opened, as best they can in the ever present glow of a private sun. Blue eyes, soft like an old blanket implore him, but he does not know what for.

“Merlin, my pet, have you come to play?”

Arthur peers at his Queen. “He will do as commanded.”

She silences him, without a look. Without movement. Merlin doesn’t like being impressed. “I know he must. But it’s more fun if he is willing.”

Her scent curls around him like too many lilacs, suffocating him. She trails her fingers down his arm, and he wants to rake his nails down her face. He nods instead, sickly pleased when Arthur gasps.

Morgana smiles and drapes herself over Merlin’s shoulder, like a cape. “You’re angry aren’t you pet? Want to hurt him the way he hurt you?”

The rot sours his mouth but it’s true. He wants to leave his own mark on that pretty skin. “If you so desire.”

She shrugs. “Break him. Just make sure you can put him back together.”

Her heels click as she abandons the former friends.


	3. Chapter 3

Arthur has stared death in the face, many times. He has made a career of it. Never though, has death looked so... empty.

Merlin looks empty. Nothing but skin covered bones, held together by hate. It carves into Arthur, the same way he imagines Morgana’s nails have carved into Merlin. He wonders if Merlin even feels the rows of scars. He wonders if the man before him feels anything anymore.

Merlin, who is raising a hand to stroke Arthur. It hurts, cold and slick. Like frosted mud in his veins. He sees the moment when Merlin realizes what the curling marks on their skin are for.

“You bastard. You promised.” Arthur has never missed the heat of anger before, but Merlin can’t even muster rage.

“I do not control it Merlin.”

As if to challenge the statement, Merlin raises a hand and his eyes flare gold. Arthur can feel the traces of what should have been a painful blow. It dances across his chest like blades of grass just a little sharp.

“I don’t Merlin. It answers only to you. But it will not harm those you care for. I had to make sure Morgana couldn’t take that from you. Could never force you to harm those you love.” He doesn’t say it, but he couldn’t let her steal that from Merlin, because Arthur worried that it would be the thing to final turn the sorcerer into the monster he saw himself as.

Merlin says nothing. He doesn’t move, and if it weren’t for the thin skin revealing the heart stuttering in his chest, Arthur would fear he’d turned to stone.

And then Merlin is flying at him, faster than his abused body should be able to. Brittle knuckles strike his abdomen, and the shock of the blow knocks the wind out of him more than the blow.

Merlin has never been a physical fighter, usually preferring to rely on his magic. He doesn’t have the grace of a trained warrior and his moves are frantic and chaotic, like an animal afraid of the cage.

Arthur doesn’t know how to defend himself. Can’t imagine raising a hand against this man. He keeps expecting Merlin to weary, but the magic must course through him stronger than even Morgana suspect, because the blows only grow stronger.

Merlin pauses, for a moment, hand raised to stroke Arthur in the face. He can see the hesitation; he remembers Merlin telling him “mother says striking a person in the face is the greatest sign of disrespect.”

Perhaps betraying them, selling them body and soul is bigger, because Merlin strikes hard and fast, if not precisely. It unlocks something in him, and Arthur sees it. Merlin, the man he has sacrificed kingdom and knighthood for, is going to murder him.

He is going to do it without heart, without passion. Arthur has ruined the gentle soul and he deserves this, but he can’t help the tears. Can’t help the way his heart cracks and splinters, echoing in the room.

Merlin raises a hand, and Arthur can see the glow, the way even the rusted iron is no longer a match for the storm inside of him. He closes his eyes, ready for it. But he needs to let Merlin know something, needs to offer him hope, and himself a chance at redemption.

Quick as he can he slips two thin bands around Merlin’s wrist. “They aren’t all dead, Merlin. Find them.”

It hurts, more than he thought it would when Merlin’s hands wrap around his throat, but he doesn’t fight back.

He only wonders if Merlin feels how violently he flinches as Morgana’s heels echo on the floor.

“Enough, pet.”


	4. Chapter 4

Merlin wonders if Morgan can smell the rot in him. The rot that wants to lick the blood from Arthur’s body, taste the destruction.

He doesn’t notice the way his nose crinkles.

“Fix him, pet.”

Merlin turns empty eyes on her. “Must I?”

She laughed. It reminds Merlin of broken bells. Like her chords are coated in.. he shudders, wondering if it’s his fault her laugh is no longer musical.

“Oh love. I’ve so many plans left. It wouldn’t do to have my sword splintered.” She places a hand on his shoulder, nails curling into the bone. “You’ll have other chances to wreck his body.”

Unbidden, magic slinks out of him and stretches across the floor towards Arthur. He should be more concerned about Morgana’s abilities, about the way he can feel her intent behind his magic, but he is distracted. The strange bands Arthur had locked on his wrist thrum.

He studies the thin, flexible metal. It looks silver, but it’s far too pliable, far too molded to his wrist, sitting securely under the rust bracelets he’s accustomed to.

He should tell Morgana. Why, he isn’t sure. He just knows he should. He doesn’t.

The magic Morgana rips from him washes over Arthur slowly, takes long stretches of time to put the pieces of him back together. Morgana frowns beside Merlin, both aware that the process should be faster.

Morgana tightens her nails, draws sludgy blood. “Oh puppet, seems you’re a bit weak.”

Merlin doesn’t agree. The magic is... he can feel it, sleeping in the black ink on his arms. Dormant. With a start he realizes it’s not his magic trudging it’s way through his body. Morgana doesn’t even seem to be aware she’s leeching herself this way, using Merlin’s body as a conduit.

Arthur, who is finally able to stand on his own, looks at Merlin with pleading eyes. The guilt in them puts Merlin on unsteady feet. For the first time he doubts how well he knows the man before him. He wants to ask him “what have you done to me?” The words are caught in his chest, choking him.

Morgana doesn’t care, heels digging into his back. “You, the mighty Emrys? Can’t do anything with your magic. How are you the bearer of the end?” She is angry and her magic lashes out, invisible whips that both cut and burn, that dig into the skin of Merlin’s neck.

Arthur comes to his rescue, gently placing a calming hand on his sister’s forearm. “He is weak. Half starved and sleep deprived. Perhaps, with more humane conditions his strength might return.”

She turns on her brother. “Would you have me ply him with my own furs and bathe him in my own perfumes? Feed him from my table with my hands? Like you? See how he returned your favor?” She drags a finger down his face. “Your nose might never be straight again.”

Arthur shrugs. “True, but I never collared him. And still he burned villages with a flick of his wrist.”

Merlin feels feral, snarling and lunging at Arthur. Morgana yanks on the invisible leash though, forcing him to his knees, arm caught behind him. He hates Arthur, and the passiveness with which he remembers the screams that echo in Merlin’s pulse.

Morgana nods though. She flicks her wrist. “Have Emrys bound, and then take him to Arthur’s chambers.”

She grips Arthur’s chin tight, pulling his face close. “Do what you must to subdue him. I don’t need his body whole, to make his magic work.”

Arthur hides his disgust well, but Merlin can taste it. It’s bitter and sits next to the rot consuming him.


	5. Chapter 5

Merlin feels unhinged, in ways that terrify him. He can’t help it though, like there are tendrils of Morgana’s cruelty still trapped in him. Arthur is bleeding, two perfect crescents where Merlin has bitten him, when he attempted to unbind Merlin.

He can’t explain it, but he needs the pain of the sharp binds to keep him sane. He is fracturing on the inside, too many things pulling on his will, his magic. Morgana, ever present in the back of his mind, the strange adornments of his wrist, slowly becoming a part of him, the inky storages on his arms, the distinct flavor of Arthur heightened by the blond’s own tattoos.

Madness. He survived carnage and death and his own violent rage and managed to keep his mind. Now though, nestled in a former king’s fur with a feast before him, he feels himself slipping into a fog.

“Can you taste it, Arthur? The fungus in me?”

Arthur stares at him in horror. Merlin watches his hands clench, like he wants to reach out to him. “Please, Merlin. They’re coming. Just a little longer. It will be okay. Look, I’ll remove the-“

He doesn’t mean to, but Merlin snarls at him, crouched over and ready to strike. Magic crackles in the air, stronger than he has felt it in a long time. Arthur raises his hands and backs away slowly.

“Please, Merlin. Listen to your magic. Feel what it is telling you.”

He tries. Desperately and a little wildly. But his magic is so noisy today. Like someone has let a storm of birds loose in a small room. Too many rhythms echoing in his chest. He can’t breath, can’t think, like there are extra people crowding his frail body. He curls his fingers in his hair, trying to rip those pulsings from his skull.

He screams, and this time the sound cracks the stone walls around them.

It’s only when strong arms brace him, rock him back and forth like he’s a small child, that the noise in his head begins to make sense. Like a symphony finally finding its rhythm. Suddenly, Merlin can pick out the heart beats. One, at his back, and four, somewhere beyond the walls.

Reverently he lifts Arthur’s sleeves, tracing the lifelines connecting him to the lost knights. “They had theirs done before they left. And I mine. But we had to wait on yours. She has to think she’s won.”

She festers in him again and he tightens his fingers around Arthur’s wrist, feeling the bones shift. “Always so noble, Pendragon. Sacrificing and lying.” He can see the panic in Arthur’s eyes, but he can’t stop. Her magic, still burrowing next to his, festers. “You did this.” He snarls, feels himself foam at his mouth.

“You killed them. Morgana might have locked the metal around my neck, but you chained my magic long ago.” He tries to pour the screaming into Arthur’s brain, to make the king’s dreams drip the way Merlin’s nightmares do. “I hope she feast on your marrow when she’s done with you.”

He retreats to a corner, curled in furs that smell like Arthur. Only to keep him warm, he tells himself, not for the peace and sanity it provides.


	6. Chapter 6

Morgana is caught somewhere between bored and terrified. No one is safe from the lashes her magic rain down, and Merlin can only heal so much flayed flesh without scarring. She has taken to forcing a robe on him, thick and from dark material woven with glittering thread so that it looks like the sky on a clear night. He would be thankful, if she allowed him more clothing, if she allowed him to at least keep it closed. She does afford him scraps of cloth to cover his dignity, but it doesn’t do much.

The crypt she calls a castle is cold, getting colder. Whether that is connected to Morgana’s own withering frame or not, he doesn’t care. All he really wants is is a pair of wool socks, to stop the ache in his feet as he wanders over stone floors. She is searching for something, something Arthur knows the whereabouts of.

Merlin growls at the thought of the Traitor King. He remembers a time he would have wept over the thick, white ropey lines Morgana blesses his body with. Why he would cry, he doesn’t know. As it is, he hates every time his Magic grazes over the bloody flesh, wants to leave it to suppurate. Morgana digs her nails into his neck, pours her magic through him until the wounds are clean and healed, if not pretty.

Morgana, with her nails in his neck, infecting him. Dark and sludgy, her magic, slowly working through his veins. Unlike the collection in the ink on his arms, or the strange pooling in the bands on his wrist, her magic sits in his veins and drives him mad. He wants her out. Wants the hate and anger of her to stop clouding his mind. Wants not to feel her beside him always, in dreams or wakefulness.

She takes to watching him and Arthur perform together, whatever volatile fancies simmer in her mind. She makes Merlin clean them afterwords, never caring for his exhaustion, the way it drains him. He is brittle, so brittle he might break every time he bump the furs in the corner of Arthur’s room. He thinks he should be thankful she heals his wounds and doesn’t leave mountains on his back, his thighs.

Arthur hates the ice in Merlin’s veins, but Merlin finds he likes it. There are too many beats creating heat in him, that he doesn’t understand, and despite the blue of his skin, the purple of his lips, he feels feverish, always.

Perhaps the fever is why he is apathetic when Morgana screams triumphantly. She drags two lumps behind him, muddy things wearing the knight’s cloak in Pendragon red.

Arthur is horrified, sinks to his knees, although that could just as well be from the magic Morgana is pouring through Merlin and into Arthur. Biting, burning, electric magic that should leaving his skin blistering and bubbling but only pulls tears from the king’s eyes and closes his throat.

She throws one of the lumps at Merlin’s feet and he steps back with his nose wrinkled. Brilliant red hair shines through the muddy, bloody mess. Something stirs in Merlin, but either he or Morgana snuff it out before it develops. She throws the mountainous lump at Arthur, who struggles to reach towards it, a words falling from his lips. A name perhaps, trying to dispel the fog in Merlin’s mind.

Morgana watches his lack of reaction and he can feel her pleasure in his chest. She laughs, and then he laughs, although it sounds separate from his mouth to his ears.

She slinks towards him, fingers trailing along his exposed chest, dipping to his thighs. If she is disappointed that no warmth curls in his belly, she doesn’t show it.

“Merlin, pet. Are you bored with the king?”

He cocks his head, curiously thinking. Part of him says yes, that he would like to never deal with the king again. Part of him wants to keep ruining the king. Most of him knows that she wants him to break these new bodies over and over, and for reasons beyond him the thought doesn’t sit well.

“Perhaps the king is bored as well.”

The Witch Queen seems amused by his answer and she turns on her half brother. She never cards her fingers over him the way she does Merlin. She never even touches him anymore. Simply strings him up with magic, rattles him like a cornsilk doll.

“Hear that brother? Pet thinks you need a little entertainment in your life. As if he isn’t enough to keep you occupied.”

Her magic fades from Merlin, and whether it means she’s stopped tormenting Arthur, or whether she’s just not filtering it through his body, he doesn’t care. There’s something perplexing, something fizzing beneath his skin. Two of the rhythms in his chest have synced to the third. They echo in him loudly, distractingly.

He puts his hands to his ears, and wonders why Morgana doesn’t feel the intrusion. He really wants to know why something in him, long forgotten refuses to harm these beats.

“Why have you not hung me, Morgana?”

The question shocks even himself.


	7. Chapter 7

For a moment, everything stills. No one breaths, the wind doesn’t blow, and even hearts seem to pause.

Morgana is the first to recover, although her voice has the faintest tremor. “Because you’re of little use to me dead.”

Merlin thinks it makes sense, but a bird gets loose in his chest and pecks behind his eyes. She isn’t telling the whole truth, and he doesn’t know why.

Arthur, finally finding his voice, does. “Is that what you tell yourself, sister?”

She slaps him from across the room and Merlin feels the way something in Arthur’s back breaks. Magic, light and feathery, seems to sneak out of him, even as it sustains him, wraps around his spine and binds it.

Arthur doesn’t seem to mind the blood trickling out of his nose. He taunts his sister. “Is that how you sleep at night? Do the fickle chains you bind him in give you peace?”

Morgana sets to blast him with magic that coils in Merlin’s gut like dead animals. Before she can, a voice from the ground croaks, “is that why you’ve stripped him down and starved him? Because he’s so useful?”

Morgana seethes like fish flopping in Merlin. The vines that wrap around Leon and Percival are brittle, straining under their weight even as they truss them up.

Percival says nothing, but he smirks at Morgana even as she pulls breath from his lungs.

Again and again she slams the knights into the wall, even as her own breath becomes ragged and sweat drips down her body.

Merlin wonders why they do not break and if it is at all related to the strange fluttering in his arms. It feels like his magic is leaving him. Not abandoning him, exactly, but taking a rest from him. Like it’s being borrowed.

Morgana turns her rage on him, strokes her ego against his body and leaves crescent moons on his neck, his hips, his thighs. Still, he cannot help but wonder.

“Can you kill me, Morgana?” Because he thinks he would like her to. Her scream cracks the walls of the castle. Merlin taste the blood on her throat.

Two heart beats circle closer, carrying with them a glow that compares to his own magic and she is losing control. Hope, or perhaps insanity, stirs in Merlin.

“You can’t, can you?” He laughs, a cracked stream sound. “Heavens. That’s what this show is for. These chains. You cannot kill me!” He is hysterical and magic begins to leak from the fissures in his skin, strange bubbles curling around Arthur and his knights, even as Merlin sinks to his knees.

“You’re never going to let me go, because you can’t. I really am a pet. A worthless rag doll for you to toss around and squeeze as you see fit, but I’m never going to be free because you cannot.”

It breaks the anger holding him together and he doesn’t scream, he doesn’t cry. He just exhales. The storm roars out of him and stirs the snow outside and the dust in the air and takes the knots of Morgana’s hair and binds her with them.

“An impasse, my queen. Because I cannot kill you and you cannot kill me. Are we to spend eternity gnawing on the bones of each other? Carving our names into each other’s skin?”

The magic that vacationed away from him returns with a vengeance and he grips her sparrow neck in his ice twig hands until her eyes are shot with blood and her own magic strikes back. Still the glow comes closer and still Arthur and the knight’s hang back.

“You should have burned me, Morgana. Strung your magic around my neck and set flames to my skin where your nails sunk in. When you had the strength, the gift, your magic should have peeled the very flesh from my bones.” He leans in close. “I cannot kill you with the splinters in my body.” He pauses, like he is tasting the air, like the mere thought of her death is weighing her down, more than his body. “But you feel it? Right Morgana? Your death is on its way.”

She snarls beneath his hands and tightens his rust adornments, but they crack against the onslaught of time and too much. “I will take you with me, Emrys.”

Merlin leans in close, so close only she can hear as his lips brush the shell of her ear. “I hope you keep your promises.”


	8. Chapter 8

The end does not come barreling in, nor does it sneak through the tunnels.

The end is walked through the front door, bleeding and limp, with a leg that hangs stiff despite no detectable injury, dark skin and a rogue smile, both bound in cuffs weaker than Merlin’s.

Chaos doesn’t erupt in the end. Only withered branches that try to choke the life from the last five soldiers of a dead kingdom. They do not touch to sorcerer; he chokes on the sight of men long thought dead.

Magic rains freely in the space between the walls. It ebbs in and out of Merlin dancing through Camelot’s knights, until Merlin can no longer stand the syncing of hearts and breaths and thoughts and pains. He rips and rips at the unwanted bonds until ink spills upon the frozen floor like rivers after a season of floods. The knights give it freely, but the king tries to catch the black liquid in his palms, tries to rub it back into his chest. Merlin lets him keep one smear.

The end, Merlin finds, is raw wrists dripping blood as chains are brutally ripped from them. It is standing over a woman who was once a friend, with a sword that pulses and a grief stricken lover torn between begging “end it” and praying “spare her.” It is broken men gifting Merlin a sword carried through graves and under hills, a sword that vibrates with the breath of dragons. Gwaine, with a cracked mirror smile carefully pulling it from a clever trapping on Elyan’s leg. The stiff but uninjured lump. Percival, leaning in his lover trying to be more than a crumbling hill. Leon, unable to bear the ravage around him, hands covering his eyes even as tears waterfall through crooked fingers.

The end is a choice no one wants to make. When he finally drives the sword through her heaving chest, he stares Arthur in the face, feeling as broken and empty as he did on a battle field with a stranger’s gore on his hands.

It should have been Arthur. Driving the sword or feeling it, Merlin is unsure.

The world erupts around them, an explosion of stone and light and anguished cries as five beaten down boys try to hold back an entire army, lost without its queen.

Five weary men and a single sorcerer who finds that even as the earth’s energy erupts from him in violent gaping huffs, he is breathless. Even as he realizes that the not-silver bands on his wrist don’t contain his magic, but work like glass to focus it wherever his hands may point.

Five soldiers stare in awe at a man so broken liquid gold pours from his splintered body. Who, when the king kneels, so do his knights. Who find in them a solemn promise to never forget all that this man sacrificed and make a secret pact to take what little humanity is left in the glowing male and safeguard it so long as they walk the world.

And when, in the end, the army lays in bloody, unrecognizable heaps around them, splattered over pale skin and in dark hair, Merlin thinks he was supposed to offer a lost girl a chance at redemption.

Or at least a chance at his own throat.

Merlin walks out of the ruins and doesn’t mind that the sword is so embedded in the stone it might never be pried free. Not even for a golden king bound to return.

He decides, in the frozen sunlight, that it was not Morgana’s rage or his own guilt, turning to acid in his veins. It was the curse the earth gave him, wrapped as a gift.

He tries to beat it back into the dirt. Let’s the gold drop out of him alongside the red even as it it streak down his face in salty tracks. He doesn’t scream. He makes no sound. Just pounds all that is wrong with him into a shallow grave shaped like his fist and begs the old and distant gods to rip their power from his veins.

When he is empty, when it feels like he has nothing left in him, a warm hand rest against his shoulder, and something familiar, something vague stirs in his belly.

He knows there are kernels still planted in him, knows they will sprout again and wilt and wither. Knows that at some point he will be forced to call forests out of his skin for the sake a broken, crumbly pile of rocks floating among the stars. Knows that his shame will forever be white mountains on his back and crescents in his thighs and ropey flesh along his neck, his wrist.

If he is lucky, if karma loses count, if even one dead god wakes up, Merlin thinks he might have one man standing by his side, though he worries it will never again be enough.

Arthur seems to know enough for him though, cradling him in gentle arms even as Merlin struggles against him. Whispers apologies and promises and forgiveness where Merlin cannot voice the words. And if he looks up, and no one stares at him in disgust, if he sees no signs of his monster in their eyes, if even their pity is laced with unfettered respect, Merlin might see a bridge towards a man healed, though perhaps not entirely whole.

 


End file.
